Predicting erosion at valley fills with two reclamation techniques in mountainous terrain

ABSTRACT

Minimising erosion resulting from mining is important to improve of reclamation and management. Geomorphic landform design (GLD) is a reclamation technique that attempts to replicate a long-term erosionally stable condition. Erosion was evaluated using the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) comparing two reclamation scenarios (conventional and GLD) to the undisturbed condition. Soil loss rates were highest during the post-mining, pre-vegetation condition (conventional: 123.2 t ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹; GLD: 204.3 t ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹). Long-term erosion rates showed little difference between valley fills reclaimed with GLD and conventional methods; however, erosion was concentrated along the conventional fill face and distributed over the GLD landform.

KEYWORDS:

• Soil erosion
• RUSLE
• GIS
• surface mining reclamation
• geomorphic landform design

Acknowledgments

The project described in this publication was supported by Grant/Cooperative Agreement Number G12AP20156 from the United States Geological Survey. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the USGS.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the U.S. Geological Survey [G12AP20156].